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Thursday, February 05, 2009

In the dispute over the Holocaust-denier Richard Williamson, the Central Council of Jews in Germany calls for the exclusion of the SSPX

The decision of the Pope, the excommunication of Williamson and three other bishops of the Brotherhood should be repealed, it must be revised, said Central Council Vice President Dieter Graumann on Thursday to Deutsche Funk. "The SSPX is a group of intolerant fanatics." Even in September, the group had called Jews as "the eternal murderers of God ". The worldview of the group was "deeply reactionary, anti-Semitic, fundamentalist and fanatical."

Pope Benedict XVI has asked Williamson to withdraw his denial of the genocide of six million European Jews by the Nazis. The rehabilitation of the four ultra-conservative bishops has triggered a storm around the world. The horde of critics has also included Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"From a German pope, we had hoped for much more tact," said Graumann. The fact that Benedict had asked Williamson to withdraw, either as the "beginning of the beginning of a first step" was to be welcomed.

Cathcon comments- it is precisely from the stigmatisation as a group using unjustified stereotypes that Jews have suffered from so greviously over the centuries. They would wish to exclude from the Church one leading traditionalist in Austria who I found at synagogue service in Linz and who has the deepest sympathy for the community and there are, of course, others.